1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to storage containers to store items such as cooking utensils and foods, and, more particularly, to a storage container, which is designed such that a locking unit to removably lock a cover to a body has a multistage structure, thus allowing a storage space to store the items to be variable.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a cooking device, such as a microwave oven, has auxiliary cooking devices including a grilling unit which is used to grill foods, such as meat and fish, a skewer, and a toasting kit which is used to toast bread. In order to easily and conveniently store and use the auxiliary cooking devices, the auxiliary cooking devices are stored in a storage container.
The storage container to store items such as the auxiliary cooking devices and foods, includes a body, a cover, and a locking unit. The body defines a storage space to store the items therein. The cover covers a top of the body so as to prevent the storage space of the body from being exposed to the outside. The locking unit functions to lock or unlock the cover to or from the body.
When the cover is locked to the body by the locking unit, the items are stably stored in the body without being undesirably removed from the body. Meanwhile, when the cover is unlocked from the body by the locking unit, a user may take out the stored items from the body or put new items into the body.
However, in conventional locking units, the cover is locked to the body at only a fixed position, so the storage container has a fixed interior volume when the cover is locked to the body by the locking unit Thus, the conventional storage unit has a problem that an interior volume thereof is not variable according to size or amount of items to be stored in the storage unit. That is, although the size or amount of items to be stored is small and the items occupy a small space in the storage container, the storage container has a fixed volume, so it is impossible to reduce the size of the storage container. Meanwhile, when the size or the amount of items to be stored is large, it is impossible to store the items in a single storage container, so several storage containers are required.